Amazon Audible DLL Hijacking

Posted on 06 December 2017

Aloha,
*Introduction:*
Vendor: Amazon
Affected Product: Audible Software for Windows PC
Fixed in: Latest Version released by the vendor
Vendor Website: https://www.audible.com/
<https://www.audible.com/sw?pageFlowType=PC_WIZARD>
Vulnerability Type: Privilege Escalation
CVE: CVE-2017-17069
Credit: Himanshu Mehta (@LionHeartRoxx)
*Summary:*
Audible contains a privilege escalation vulnerability that could allow an
unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the targeted
system and gain elevated privileges. The vulnerability exists due to some
DLL file is loaded by 'ActiveSetupN.exe' improperly. And it allows an
attacker to load this DLL file of the attackeras choosing that could
execute arbitrary code without the user's knowledge.
*Affected Product*:
Audible Software for Windows PC
*Tested on*: Windows 7
*Impact:*
Attacker can exploit this vulnerability to load a DLL file of the
attacker's choosing that could execute arbitrary code. This may help
attacker to successfully exploit the system if user creates shell as a DLL.
*Vulnerability Scoring Details:*
The vulnerability classification has been performed by using the CVSSv2
scoring system (http://www.first.org/cvss/).
Base Score: 7.2 (AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C)
*More Details*:
For software downloaded with a web browser the application directory is
typically the user's "Downloads" directory: see <
https://insights.sei.cmu.edu/cert/2008/09/carpet-bombing-
and-directory-poisoning.html>,
<http://blog.acrossecurity.com/2012/02/downloads-folder-binary-planting.html
>
and <http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2012/Aug/134> for "prior art" about
this well-known and well-documented vulnerability.
If an attacker places malicious DLL in the user's "Downloads" directory
(for example per "drive-by download" or "social engineering") this
vulnerability becomes a remote code execution.
*Proof of concept/demonstration*:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Create a malicious 'dwmapi.dll' file and save it in your "Downloads"
directory.
2. Download 'ActiveSetupN.exe' from https://www.audible.com/sw?
pageFlowType=PC_WIZARD and save it in your "Downloads" directory.
3. Execute .exe from your "Downloads" directory.
4. Malicious dll file gets executed.
Chao!!
Himanshu Mehta